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Browsing by Author "Carroll, Aaron E"
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Item Festive medical myths(2008-12) Vreeman, Rachel C; Carroll, Aaron EIn the pursuit of scientific truth, even widely held medical beliefs require examination or re-examination. Both physicians and non-physicians sometimes believe things about our bodies that just are not true. As a reminder of the need to apply scientific investigation to conventional wisdom, we previously discussed the evidence disputing seven commonly held medical myths.1 The holiday season presents a further opportunity to probe medical beliefs recounted during this time of the year. We generated a list of common medical or health beliefs related to the holidays and winter season and searched Medline for scientific evidence to support or refute these beliefs. If we couldn’t find any evidence in the medical literature, we searched the internet using Google.Item Medical myths(2007-12) Vreeman, Rachel C; Carroll, Aaron EPhysicians understand that practicing good medicine requires the constant acquisition of new knowledge, though they often assume their existing medical beliefs do not need re-examination. These medical myths are a light hearted reminder that we can be wrong and need to question what other falsehoods we unwittingly propagate as we practice medicine. We generated a list of common medical or medicine related beliefs espoused by physicians and the general public, based on statements we had heard endorsed on multiple occasions and thought were true or might be true. We selected seven for critical review: People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day We use only 10% of our brains Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals. We used Medline and Google to search for evidence to support or refute each of these claims. Because “proving a negative” can be challenging, we noted instances in which there was no evidence to support the claim.